Fady Saad
Founder and General Partner of Cybernetix Ventures, MassRobotics Co-Founder, and Boston Business Journal 40 under 40 Honoree.
Fady Saad is a frequent speaker, advisor, judge, panelist, and mentor in multiple entrepreneurship organizations and events, and authored numerous articles on robotics, investing, and innovation.
Photo courtesy of Fady Saad
The best way to learn about companies was to start one.
Fady Saad is the Founder and General Partner of Cybernetix Ventures, a venture capital firm leading the way for investment into early-stage robotics, automation, and AI startups. He is also Co-founder of MassRobotics, the world’s first and largest robotics, and AI startup escalator. He was born and raised in Cairo, Egypt, and as a young student, he did well in school. His mother placed a strong emphasis on education. She encouraged Fady to attend the American University in Cairo, where his brother studied mechanical engineering. Fady wanted to follow in his brother’s footsteps by attending the same university and becoming a mechanical engineer. During his time in school, Fady took on leadership roles and got involved in the National Federation for Scouts in Egypt. In addition, he helped organize meetings and events at his local church and spoke at several international events.
At university, I became involved with the National Federation for Boy Scouts in Egypt. This was my first “enterprise experience.” I figured out how to build the group, learned marketing, created a website, kept records — the basic systems you need in any organization.
After graduating, he worked as a teaching assistant for his college professor and advisor, Lotfi Gaafar. Together, they reconstructed an industrial engineering lab to make it more hands-on for students. After collaborating with Gaafar, he started working for Nokia Siemens, where he met Khaled Rabie, a leader, and VP of the company. Fady felt an instant connection with Khaled, which grew as they worked together at Siemens. Gaafar and Khaled’s mentorship, along with his background in industrial engineering, design, and business, inspired Fady to seek his graduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on how complex systems, technology, and management can guide companies and solve problems.
His acceptance to MIT under a full scholarship landed Fady in the university’s System Design & Management program, where he studied the viability of startups as complex adaptive systems. Fady discovered his love for robotics not long after completing his thesis and founded his first company, ePowerhouse. Later, he worked for Vecna Robotics, designing the company’s robotics research and development, funding, and commercialization strategies.
Drawing on his experiences at Vecna Robotics, his experience, and MIT studies, Fady co-founded MassRobotics and developed a unique corporate partnership program and business model that helps startups bring prototyping through to production, eventually coining the term “startup escalator.” MassRobotics remains the first and largest robotics and Artificial Intelligence startup escalator in the world.
Today, Fady helps robotics startups secure investments and funding. Fady hopes that people can view robotics as more than just an industry on its own, but a technology and a tool that helps solve complex problems in the present world. He encourages young people to discover their inner voice and believes that we have the answers we need to find and follow the best career paths for ourselves.